Celebrate Me Home – Notes from a Shootout Winner

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Loggins and Messina Available Now

UPDATE 2026

Our first Shootout Winning pressing went up in 2011.

One thing we learned in that shootout was that only the copies mastered by Robert Ludwig have any hope of sounding good, and that is still true. We wasted our money on a few later pressings and they were hopeless against the best we played, one of which was a barely passable White Label Promo pressing (!).

White Label Promos are for collectors, not music loving audiophiles.

This WHITE HOT Stamper side one shows you just how good this record can sound, which is surprisingly good, considering how many copies of the album are just plain awful. Finally, most of the grit, grain and transistory opacity have fallen away, leaving in its place the rich, full-bodied and Tubey Magical 70s sound one would expect. 

As obvious as it may sound (especially to anyone on this site), the master tape is a whole lot better than the average copy of the record would have you think. This side one is proof positive. And side two is nearly as good, earning a solid Super Hot stamper grade of A++. Without a doubt this is by far the best copy of the album we have ever heard.

It’s also the only Loggins solo album that I’ve ever liked; it was actually a favorite of mine back in the day. I’ve owned this very copy for more than twenty years (bought it in 1988 according to the price sticker). Seems like a good time to send it on its way to find a new home.

Side One

A+++, taking top honors for its rhythmic energy and real frequency extension both high and low. (Most copies have no real top end; if you own one give it a listen and we think you’ll agree with us.) Great bass, plenty of Tubey Magic, clarity and richness — no other copy in our shootout could do what this one was doing.

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Tapestry on Classic Records

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Carole King Available Now

Sonic Grade: C

Years ago we wrote the following:

It’s been quite a while since I played the Classic LP, but I remember it as being fairly good.

UPDATE 2020

I doubt if I would care much for it now. These pressings by Classic Records rarely age well.

At the time we had this to say about the sound:

It’s a little rolled off on the top, but it’s a good rolled off, because brightening it up would make it sound modern and wrong. It’s rich and full of body, especially the piano, the way modern recordings almost never are.

So often when we revisit the remastered pressings we used to like on Heavy Vinyl we come away dumbfounded — what on earth were we thinking? These are not the droids sounds we are looking for. Perhaps our minds were clouded at the time.

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Tommy – Simply Vinyl Reviewed

More of the Music of The Who

Reviews and Commentaries for Tommy

Sonic Grade: B

One of the BEST titles on Simply Vinyl! Better than the Classic version, that’s for sure. This one has the bass that’s all but missing from the new 200 gram pressing.  

The Classic Tommy Has No Bass

It could have had amazing bass, like their Who’s Next, but it doesn’t. Why I have no idea. The overall sound is thin, so thin that we immediately knew there was no point in carrying it. (The only Classic Who record we ever carried was Who’s Next; the rest of them are dreadful, some of the worst sounding reissues out there.) Not when there’s a very fine Heavy Vinyl pressing already around. You guessed it: the Simply Vinyl pressing, the one from that label that some reviewer thinks is “screwing up the market.”

Who’s Screwing Whom?

We invite all our readers and listeners to do the shootout for themselves. Both versions of Tommy are in print and widely available. [Woops, not any more, both are long out of print.]

If you do find the Classic to be more to your liking, we simply ask that you send us your copy with a note as to the tracks you compared and what you found, so that we can hear it for ourselves. As you know from reading about Nirvana Nevermind, no two records, not even new audiophile ones, sound the same, so if you managed to get hold of a hot copy of the Classic, we want to hear it too!

After we have picked our jaws up off the floor we will happily send it back to you.

Rachmaninov / Piano Concerto No. 2 – Speakers Corner Reviewed

More of the music of Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)

Sonic Grade: Unknown

In the late ’90s, we described the sound of this pressing this way:

“Outstanding Rachmaninoff, dark and rich. Highly recommended.”

Since we have not played a copy of the album in over ten years [now 20], we have taken down our previous Sonic Grade of B as we have no idea how the record would fare today on our much-improved system.

For all we know it may have been recut, which is another problem with our older reviews of records we used to like: the new version could have very different sound from the one we played (and that’s not even taking into account the pressing variability, which we all know is sometimes huge).

London Orchestral Records from the 70s and the Problem of Opacity

Decca and London Hot Stamper Pressings Available Now

The average copy of this 1976 recording has that dry, multi-miked modern sound that the 70s ushered in for many of the major labels, notably London and RCA.

How many Solti records are not ridiculously thick and opaque? One out of ten? If that. We’re extremely wary of records produced in the 70s; we’ve been burned too many times.

And to tell you the truth, we are not all that thrilled with most of what passes for good sound on Mehta‘s London output either, especially those recorded in Royce Hall. If you have a high-resolution system, these recordings, like those on Classic Records Heavy Vinyl that we constantly criticize, leave a lot to be desired.

Opacity is a real dealbreaker for us. Most of the classical records we play from later eras simply do not have the transparency essential to transporting us from our listening room into the concert hall.

One thing you can say about live classical music, it is never opaque. (It can be dry though. Some concert halls have that sound.)

No recording in our experience — our experience having been informed by playing thousands upon thousand of them — can ever be remotely as transparent as live music.

If you have any doubts, next time you come home from the concert hall, take a moment to put on a favorite recording of the same music. You may be in for quite a shock.

Other Deccas and Londons that we’d cleaned and played and found to be disappointing can be seen here.

For more on the subject of opacity on record, click here.

Here are some of the other records we’ve discovered that are good for testing string tone and texture.

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Clarity Was Never the Point

Hot Stamper Pressings of Live Recordings Available Now

Some audiophiles spend their time listening for details in their favorite recordings. I should know; I was as guilty as anyone of that behavior.

But is that where the music is – in the details? Lots of details come out when one copy is brighter than another.

Brighter ain’t necessarily better. Most of the time it’s just brighter. 

Listening for the details in a recording can be a trap, one that is very easy to fall into if you are not careful or don’t know where these kinds of pitfalls lie.

801 Live isn’t about clarity. It’s about the sound of a rock concert.

It’s about the raw power of one of the most phenomenal rhythm sections ever captured in performance on analog tape.

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Folk Singer – Classic Records Reviewed

More of the Music of Muddy Waters

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Muddy Waters

Sonic Grade: C+

The Classic kills that muddy MOFI, which I must confess I used to like.

Things have changed, that’s for sure.

The Mobile Fidelity is thick and fat sounding, like most of their awful Anadisq releases, with much less transparency than this Classic Records pressing.

 

Roy Orbison Sings Lonely and Blue on Classic Records Heavy Vinyl

More of the Music of Roy Orbison

Sonic Grade: F

A Hall of Shame pressing and another Classic Records LP debunked.

Can’t recommend this one. It’s too bright. The DCC LP of Orbison’s material is dramatically better [assuming you want a Heavy Vinyl pressing. I doubt I would care for the sound of it now but back in the day we recommended it].

I’ve had some discussions with some audiophiles who liked this album, and I’m frankly surprised that people find this kind of sound pleasing, but if you’re one of those people who likes bright records, this should do the trick! 

Overtures in Hi-Fi – Wolff – Speakers Corner (Reviewed in the 90s)

Hot Stamper Classical and Orchestral Imports on Decca & London

Sonic Grade: B

One of the better Speakers Corner Deccas.

We haven’t played a copy of this record in years, but back in the day we liked it, so let’s call it a “B” with the caveat that the older the review, the more likely we are to have changed our minds. 

This is a very early stereo recording, which means it is spacious and open, with little spotlighting.

But what is especially memorable is the choice of material, with a few of the more obscure overtures really brought to life here, such as the opening piece by Adam on side one: Si j’etais roi.

Although not long, every second is packed with color and energy, exactly what a good overture needs.

And it even has a glockenspiel! How can you go wrong?

The Said and the Unsaid – The Firebird on Mercury

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Igor Stravinsky Available Now

For our shootout years ago of The Firebird we had three minty, potentially hot copies of the Mercury with Dorati, as well as our noisy ref. (We have a noisy reference copy for just about every major title now. We have been doing these shootouts for a very long time. After thirty years in the record business we have accumulated a World Class collection of great sounding records that are just too noisy to sell.)

UPDATE 2024 

This is no longer true. Our customers seem to be able to put up with surface noise on the records we offer if the price is low enough. Not actually low, just low enough. We have a section for records with condition issues, and there are 175 entries in it as of today, which turns out to be more than a quarter of all the Hot Stamper pressings on the site as a matter of fact.

We had one FR pressing and two of the later pressings with the lighter label, the ones that most often come with Philips M2 stampers. This is how we described the winner:

So clear and ALIVE. Transparent, with huge hall space extending wall to wall and floor to ceiling. Zero compression.

Lifelike, immediate, front row center sound like few records you have ever heard.

Rich, sweet strings, especially for a Mercury. This side really gets quiet in places, a sure sign that all the dynamics of the master tape were protected in the mastering of this copy.

What we didn’t say — and what we never say in the listings — is what the second tier copies didn’t do as well as the shootout winner.

We used to. When you read the older entries, most of the time they mention the shortcomings that caused one side or another to be downgraded by some amount, usually something like a half to a full plus.

Not all the top end, not all the bass, not as present, slightly smeary, slightly congested — the list of potential faults for any given pressing is long indeed. These are all the problems we listen for and it’s the rare copy that doesn’t suffer from one or more of them.

We decided years ago that it was better just to let you hear the two sides of the record for yourself and make your own judgments about the sound, rather than make clear to you what areas we felt needed improvement.

Consider this example. If on our system the bass was lacking compared to the very best, perhaps on your system the bass was fine, not an issue, good enough. Without the top copy to compare yours to, how would you know how much better the bass could possibly be?

A classic case of “compared to what?”

Shootouts are the only way to answer that question, which, as we never tire of saying, is THE most important question in all of audio. This is why we do shootouts, and why you must do them too, if owning the highest quality pressings is important to you.

Click on the following link to see more records for which we’ve detailed the strengths and weaknesses of a specific copy.

What We Heard on The Firebird

With all that in mind, only the Triple Plus (A+++) copy, as described above, did everything right.

There were two Double Plus (A++) copies, and each of them fell short in different ways.

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